r/OCPoetry

the pull 
unrelenting
always here

time not a factor
Still feel
space meaningless
So close

Your voice
calm
Your gaze
unwavering
Your body
strong
Your mind

yes to all of that
always all ways

dimensions 
collapsing
on in
us themselves
there here

something reaching
connecting
already there

through space
and time

i feel you 
At the edge of 
my awareness
you’re here

asleep
awake

the fifth
Maybe
somewhere out there
we were as one

will we be
Here together
we will be

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uliiw6/comment/ovr9nxo/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uo9dey/comment/ovr5z61/

The 5th Dimension
An unseen dimension beyond space and time
Where every possible version of reality exists at once
Not a direction you move through, but a field of possibility
All outcomes, all moments, all selves coexisting simultaneously
A place we can only describe, never directly perceive

Lifegiver
I resent the scarf upon your head
I seethe at the hands that taught you its weight was freedom, and not a burden
I loathe those who are angry at the scarf also
For they are no different
They too would drape you in a world of their own making, and call it yours
Im angry at myself also
For feeling angry
I am angry at everything at all times

Vessel carrier
Wouldnt it be fitting for you to end what you started
Or is it too late
If you knew what i carried with me at all times
If you werent burdened by guilt, by the seedgiver and his forecomers
By the shadow of Mumeet
Would you have chosen otherwise
And relieved me
And us
I want to believe you would
But i fear you might not
And you might like
How the noose around your neck
Irritates your pale skin

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/vFFv3cHPWC

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/qSZIkh7eZJ

If we could do a purging
cleanse out all the bad
would it be worthwhile
rekindling the sad
thing that we once had?
 
If we could bathe the sum of
all our moments in some bleach
would the pieces left
be enough for our
two souls to finally meet?
 
If we could combine forces
smother resentment with our bare hands
would I have something
to relate to
when you get so big and grand?
 
If we could extinguish the fire in us
I'd soon fall into your arms
but as it turns out
the joke is on me
you suppressed the fire alarms    

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/CdO5tsH0iq
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/zJ4igP9CB3

Every night he sat beside (hardly lay)
A woman who loved him (he turned away)
 
So she drifted into flumes of indulgence
Hitching a ride to a chemical place
that numbed herself when his anger resurfaced
All she had to do was slip away
 
Unaffected he was,
Glib in the fact
that as herself,
she no longer could act
 
How can he claim not to know
That she monitored his every breath,
That she dreaded his footsteps coming home
because he scared her half to death?

Just as they'd guessed-
Worn down with nowhere to run….
On the day he became the very thing
That he'd promised to save her from  

 
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/i4yhIRrZdD
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/yK5Pw1Cchn

 

Financed through the private university

With clandestine liberal arts dreams

I roll around in the morning 

Deciding whether my body will tolerate hot sauce and nicotine

Then to step out in the cloudy day breeze, the rain at bay, i slip on my boots

Beat visions of both the wild west and men mowing their lawns amble through my brain

I’m cut and blessed by the winds of tortured land that I can only grasp at

--

Neighbors will become your lovers and hereos pedestrian 

At least in the small town world where dreams, for those who dream them, are elucidated by street signs

Railroad tracks, creeks, lakes, and roads are the bones of myths which stir the envy of the past; (yet the past) lives in your eyes. It lives in the marrow of your ears and the tender synapses of your hands which touch the world

To wonder is to give it a newfound existence, and to sit in a trance is to fuel the universe

--

The most valuable gifts are given for free yet those who hold gold scorn

To truly own anything you only must believe

--

A penniless dancer (helplessly) mercifully (marries) binds her toes to the ever-shifting ground

As you just learn to hold the flag of a (false) fallacious union

She girds her jaw and her teeth into iron and mud as your shiny lips graze soft fruit which  (goes to flow) flows through your arms

--

As she declares war, you (sit at the head of the press) whittle at the spine of your notebook, condemning those who ever shoveled their beating heart out of their chest to plant it in the mud, a tree of beautiful flesh blossoming under the golden sun

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uo5m9a/comment/ovr6zae/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uo6no4/comment/ovr5ifw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

 

the fruits of my labor never bloom
they sometimes blossom with gorgeous petals
but eventually wither
i think the soil might be toxic
poisoned by the substance

it controls the atmosphere,
the temperature, the likelihood of how
the day will go
the chemical is palpable
secondhand huffs sent me into anaphylactic shock
a chain reaction
a life lived in much shame
and eternal stagnation
a chained reaction

its insatiable hunger seeks to
drain bank accounts and sanity
leaving behind only broken houses, shattered dreams,
damaged trust, dysfunctional dynamics

it’s in the dirt traveling through
the roots to the seeds
watered by acid rain and sprayed with the substance

what’s worse is i’ve never even really indulged in it
so i’ve betrayed myself for nothing

——————————————————————————

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/F7ajtfNFtr

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/ykcMXemGUZ

The days feel heavy, the distance between us feeling vaster. Maybe it’s the busy days and sleepless nights, maybe it’s just my wondering mind, but I care about us too much to ignore it.

I wish I could lie beside you in a room of our own, tucking ourselves in for the night as the silver moonlight fills the room and the curtains rustle gently against the open window.

But for now I shall close my eyes in hopes our minds drift off together, stealing time we cannot otherwise spend on ourselves. Thieves quietly pocketing what this world is too greedy to spare.

[A poem about long distance and the challenges of making time for each other]
———————————————————
• https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/78kNpvH41g

• https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/c4NStPRCwl

Wall that stands straight it never falls

Out of order out of honor height extremely tall

Storms came to bring the wall down

Stated its dream and refused the crown

Problems came gave a tough fight

The road of life seems a bit tight

What comes what goes what remains a dream

Nothing is as simple as it truly seems

Our life stands straight lucky charm indeed

Crying for help don't know what we need

Birds kept in cages just want a little blow

If you want to fly i have to let you go

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/lSP7kDWJEl

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/0ozrJZGcdx

**TW: CHILD ABUSE**

I’d like to say it was a golden childhood
Broken up by a sprinkling of pain
But candor would disagree

What it was, was a long endless
String of terrible things
No child should have to face.

And yet,
all I remember are the pretty sunsets
The time spent running wild
Five children allowed to just be
In the moments we were free

Golden hours
spent hunting down wild raspberries
Free falling down giant hills
On bikes you hoped still had brakes
Sneaking through corn fields
To find something to feed the neighbors pigs
Sprinting through grass as tall as you
With no concern except for finding
each other on the other side

It was strong and stormy winds
Loud music and silly dances
Forests and freedom
Make believe and fantasy
It was everything but it was a dream.

One where my siblings’ smiles
Were seared in my mind.

And yet,
I still get flashes of their screams
My infinite attempts to save them
Five children scraping by,
Trying to survive.

Endless hours
Being hunted by bruising hands
Stomachs dropping with anxiety
Knowing you were next
Hoping if you were still enough
You may go unnoticed and unpunished
Running away from a very real threat
Hoping everyone had gotten out.

It was sobs and scared hushes
Overheard fights and fragile peace
Brown belts and red welts
Dissociation and dissonance
It was nothing but it was our hell.

One where my siblings’ sobs
were seared in my mind.

It was both.
Everything and nothing.
Golden and endless.

A beautiful short-lived dream,
And an ever burning bottomless hell.

I honestly just had to get this down and wanted to share. Thank you.
Comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoetryWritingClub/s/Bvyr0BTPKb

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/qbO5mpyEvV

As I look at their
Four little eyes looking up to me
I know the man
I want, and have to be

Somewhere along the way
I lost my integrity
But I regained it here
In a much truer reality

My tears flow down
Like baptism water for those into Christianity
But Jesus ain’t taking the wheel
My god; it’s all on me

I know I’m hard to love
For most, that's plain to see
But for some beautiful reason
Those two still choose me

Other than them
Life will be what life will be
Times been hard
I don’t need any more tragedy

Life goals
No longer include any sense of vanity
I don’t care about the rest
As long as I take care of us three

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/TSTYphsVX1

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/urWTljSXs7

I am tired feeling enthralled in darkness

Of being sore,wailful, mirthless and hopeless.

Of feeling ,being a gift, waived with roughness.

I just want to embrace the light

Of the warmth, freedom , delight.

Of being part of a life, not a spectator of unholy rite.

Systematic humiliation of human nature,

Raised by nefarious nurture,

Raised by ones, loosing human features…

Why do people strictly obey

This disorder and dismay?

This will be a mystery for me, the vow,

Which was sworn by people, by thou…

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/1lpomV4REf

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1unpwyj/comment/ovn8ml2/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=mweb3x&utm\_name=mweb3xcss&utm\_term=2&utm\_content=share\_button

Apple in the palm, laughter coming down from the cheeks, while the old men ask to see a new picture and the children refuse in bleak and foreign anger

Courteous and fingered with hopeless marriageful promise, indian dots on the forehead become  dreaming point for the older children, while they are put to bed

Ribbed and rabid dogs eat for they are unsure and they hurt the white lamped handler, and they bark hello in the morning

Birdsong looks like Tuesdays and the ribbons are tied in your hair and they are watered like the daffodils that come in bite sized packages

Argyle uniform starch comes in your throat like the hand of the man who said he wanted to help and the waitress, or the cashier, says to go slower

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1unpwyj/comment/ovnb7if/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1um5rtw/comment/ovnosnl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Frozen by fear, tears streaming down my face

Staring up at the man before me

As he held a gun to my four year old head

Why daddy? Don't you love me?

You were supposed to protect me

Instead I was forced to stand for hours

In a dark silent corner

My tiny feet so swollen and raw they could no longer hold my weight

The pain seated my tiny body and I couldn't help the need to fall down

Exhaustion overtook my tiny body as I tensed knowing what was coming

Id curl in a ball as I wait for the blows to land

The cruel fists punching my side

The hard rough smack of a calloused hand against bare skin

And the strikes of a leather belt leaving blood and welts in their wake

This house was my prison not a home

My bedroom door locked from the outside

Days turned into weeks

I wasn't allowed to eat I was bad

I didn't deserve it

It's so dark as tears flow down my face my only way of life

Surviving on the small scraps my mom could sneak

Hoping she didn't get caught so she didn't have to feel his wrath

I was only six when my world finally crashed

In the mountains behind my grandmother's house

I watched everything I loved burn to ash

Because my tiny hands couldn't clean to his satisfaction

Princess I'm sorry that you also had to face the cruelty and I'm sorry it was me who pulled the trigger.

I swear I never wanted to but he held me in his arms with that gun and forced my tiny fingers to pull that trigger

My poor white kitten gone way before she had a chance to live

is it said I wished it was me?

I always prayed for someone to take me away from my father.

The man supposed to love and protect me

A monster of his own making

No one answered my prayer

Not even God and I blamed him

My pleas and screams were met with silence

The neighbors knew but they didn't dare say a word

The burden of trauma, violence, and neglect to much for such a tiny soul to bear.

I should have been watching TV

Playing with toys

Dreaming about the future

Instead I was searching for a way to stop the pain

I wanted to sleep and never wake

Broken glass I was eight years old as I tried so desperately

I pushed and scraped at my skin

Hoping to let myself bleed and never have to live another day in this hell.

because that's what it was

Hell

The world left me in the hands of a monster who never once showed a tender touch.

It is a truly depressing reality.

I have the scars to prove it

I was an innocent soul who knew nothing about what I did wrong

Almost murdered by the man who should have died to protect and love me.

I barely survived

But I did survive

I'm giving that little girl the voice she was always denied

We survived the monster in plain sight

Taylor Rice

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1unkerp/comment/ovkvboi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1umr5og/comment/ovkwt9l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

Humor me
Did you achieve the movie dream
Did you go out 
Did you do stupid shit 

Tell me how it went
Tell me what you did
Tell me where you went

Did you enjoy your last summer
Did you make the most of high school
Did you live to the expectations you had

Tell me you figured out what works
Tell me you've experienced things
Tell me you lived you high school life

I didnt achieve the movie dream 
I didnt go out as much as i would like
I didnt do as much as i wanted

It went alright
I stayed home most of the time
I went to my dads and moms house

Not as much as i would like
Not even a quarter of what I hoped to do so far
No 

I figured out i dont work well
I experienced almost nothing compared to others
I went through high school

To be honest
I dont feel alive
I dont have anything new happening 
I dont go out
I dont do anything social
 
I have half of summer im pretty sure and my last year of high school

peer 1 poem

peer 2 poem

Encased in a fifty-foot-thick glacier

I would be able to melt through

With vitality and vigor

The way my heart melts when I am with you.

 

The way I hang on to your goodbyes

Sweet, subtle, succulent

Just like a cotton candy cloud.

 

Not nutritious in the slightest

But eliciting such intense intoxication.

 

But

 

You were never meant to be mine

Thousands of miles behind.

 

The cloud has already been claimed

Calmly and cautiously

As one must with a construct so crisp.

 

I fear for the day

When the storm clouds roll

With its callous downpour

Melting this fragile fantasy away.

------------------------------------------

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1unnpr0/comment/ovlsgg8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1unk8xe/comment/ovlxe5l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Five in the morning.
What a shame to see the dawn break,
Another night we spent awake,
And I feel the pressure turning.

Your words flood the air,
Please carry on.
These walls can’t contain you,
They only learn.
You need a body for your waves
To break upon.
Though it hardly matters who.

I’m on this cold bathroom floor, watching,
‘Cause someone’s got to.
You are behind the shower door, drowning,
You say it grounds you.

The cameras are waiting
To see another angle.
Your tides caught in the tangle
Of everything you’re staging.

Your words flood the air,
Please carry on.
The only voice you hear
Comes from the storm.
You need a witness in the room,
To give it form.
Though it hardly matters who.

We went up together,
And I knew what I was there for.
But somehow,
It always comes down
To your comedowns.

———————————————

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/MLcJgjkHxe

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/Tnrby6bqWl

Anhedonia to an eclipsing numbness

What was once a lack of pleasure

Became lackluster in anything at all

The pharmacy has a grip on my livelihood

As I'm persuaded by the soothing voice of psychiatry

Doctor;

I want to feel alive again

Is there a capsule for emotions?

Something that will spring me back to life?

Doctor, doctor;

Let me live freely

As manic as I desire

At least then I could breathe

There's no voice anymore

Just empty noises

That spill from my throat

And pour out my mouth

I'm not pure

I haven't been in a long time

I used to talk in millimeters, and milligrams

Now I speak in a dialect not even I understand

I want the room to think

Without all the fog

I want space to live

But sadly I'm not

When I was 5 I learned to tie my shoes

15 years later I learned to tie a noose

4 more years passed by and my hands are tied tight

And my ankles are chained to the floor

I don't want to be like this anymore

Death isn't an escape

But the allure is so captivating

So many wasted notes

So many lost words

So many distant goodbyes

So much smoke and so little butterflies

I want to be free

From these chains on my feet

But they're locked to ankles

And no one has the key

I want to move forward

I want just a chance

But I'm glued to the thought of

"Will I succeed?" and "I don't know if I can"

I'm crying out to you

These pills rip the joy from me

The way the voices ripped me apart

There's no middle ground to be made

There's no hope to seek

I'm endlessly depressed and

I'm so damn obsessed with

The voice of a final goodbye

The voice that leads me to the end of my life

But I don't want to die

I just want to be alright

...

Feedback:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/vFHx0RC9OQ

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/egyaKomUv5;

you arrived dressed as a shepherd
and i was a lamb with a broken leg.
tell me,
how was i supposed to know
the wolf had learned scripture?

you spoke in the language of healing.
wrapped commandments in ribbons
and tied them around my wrists.
i wore them proudly.
mistaking strings for stitches.
mistaking obedience for recovery.

you fed me rules
like they were medicine.
five stars hanging above my head
like constellations.
i spent nights reaching for them
until my arms gave out.
you called it effort.
i called it devotion.

i built a shrine from your approval.
lit candles with shaking hands.
watched the wax drip onto my skin
and thanked god for the warmth
while it burned me.

the thing about cages
is they start to feel holy
when somebody tells you
they were built to keep you safe.
so i kissed the bars.
called them protection.
called them guidance.
called them love.
anything but what they were.

i wore obedience like a halo.
the metal rusted into my skin.
when i bled,
you called it progress.
and i fucking believed you.
god,
i believed you.

you taught me recovery
like a dog learns tricks.
sit.
stay.
roll over.
good girl.
good girl.
good girl.
until the day i couldnt perform
and suddenly i was feral.

i buried my failures in the garden.
by spring,
they had grown your voice.
every flower leaned toward me
and whispered
not enough.

somewhere along the way
my recovery stopped belonging to me.
my pulse answered to your approval.
my worth answered to your anger.
and i became so afraid of losing you
that i called it healing.

i mistook the leash for a lifeline.
held it against my chest
and wondered why i couldn't breathe.

they asked me what was so good about you.
i searched your pockets
for something worth all the bruises.
a miracle.
a map.
a reason.
but all i found
were the promises
id put there myself.

i searched your pockets for gold
only to find my own coins.

somewhere,
there's a version of me
who never answered your message.
she sleeps through the night.
she doesn't count her worth
in completed tasks.
she doesn't mistake fear
for devotion.
she doesn't kneel
at altars that demand pieces of her
in exchange for mercy.

and somewhere,
there's a graveyard full of teeth.
every piece of myself
i bit out and left behind
just to make room for you.

now the candles have burned out.
the ribbons have come undone.
the shepherd has lost his flock.
and for the first time,
i can see the wolf
without the scripture.

feedback:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1unky85/comment/ovm9n5f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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In what wake did my passions drive

Thrashing, flailing through a life? 

And all that I chose not to do 

I wish to sit and speak with you.

1 2